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@Pamela Fast Same concept. If the people committing these horrendous acts are identifying themselves as Muslim and you accept it on face value without considering that they do not speak for all Muslims, then your logic argues that the KKK is clearly a Christian organization as they identify themselves as such. They have church leaders, members, etc just like the radical Muslims have leaders, members, etc.

You seem to think that Christianity is a great monolith over which one body has control, this is not so, nor is it true of Islam, Judaism, or Buddhism.

With regard to the world not seeing certain actions, I would argue that the world sees what it chooses to see. Tabloidism and pap have replaced journalism. I rarely see any media that presents both sides of the story fairly. Too many have taken a side (whether the side is liberal or conservative) as opposed to simply reporting the facts.

@Keith. I am not arguing to regulate income. I am arguing to regulate basic resources. I am arguing to create an opportunity for individuals to participate in a free society.

If everyone has a right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", then people should be able to live without worry of dying from want of medical care, food, clothing and shelter. To pursue liberty you need an educated populace so that every person has the tools to defend their liberty and to pursue happiness to the extent that their talents and drive will take them.

Human nature is such that there will always be those that have more than others. That doesn't faze me. I just don't think people should die for me to have the luxuries I enjoy.

@Keith, money is simply a construct of a promise to repay one form of labor or good with another form of labor. It is an abstract tha only holds as much meaning as the parties involved agree to.

Private industry does produce things, but it also produces something I'm going to call "false money". For example, paying to buy bottled water is such an example. You are usually paying for the bottle and the marketing. Water itself is an abundant resource. This is a scenario where private industry has done no one any favors. They do not make the potable water available to people who need it and profit off of the stupidity of others without actually producing anything.

@Keith. If people want to spend money on something that ridiculous I have nothing against it. I am just pointing out that nothing has been created or actually added to the pie, the money generated is based on an abstract with nothing behind it.

@ Ulla -

Actually, try looking at it this way: In the broadest brush stroke at describing the venture of our humanity, one observes that the game is to survive well, and survive socially. It is also simply true that the most effective means we have discovered thus far to manage a technologically sourced means of survival, is the free market. And life is not fair. So some will have vastly more than others. No problem there.

The complication is that the free market is based on competition - and when run without human interference, works like a vicious animals would work: with a cruel every-man-for-himself dynamic.

In business, of course, that's entirely appropriate. In social relations, it is a betrayal of our fundamental natures. Human life is Sacred.

Godless types and Ayn Rand devotees try to deny that all the time - and they vote the every-man-for-himself vote every time because it suits their greed. Randians simply use their philosophical fairy tale to justify their immorality.

It isn't as simple as that all the resources are consumed by the rich though. The problem for our humanity overall is the lack of education and rights for women and other human and economic rights in so many countries. Without these in place, we end up with countries where no effective birth control is practiced, and population runs out of control. In those places, no matter how much money you put into the sytem, the population simply expands - so no matter what you do, there's always only barely enough to go around: chronic abject proverty and malnutrition, and famine at the slightest falter, are the results. It's not a free market failure. It's a cultural failure.

That said, Keith is simply dishonest when he says "all boats rise on this sea of productivity." The free market determines - which is to say, forces - a barbarous way of life for hundreds of millions. It will continue to do so until our technology advances and energy sources grow such that even the lowest placed of our working classes are able to earn a living wage. Even at such time, still generations away certainly - it's possible that, as in the days of the robber barons, those at the top of the economic echelon will utilize their vast incomes to influence politics and the law such that they torpedo competition and otherwise keep wage competition running so fiercely that working classes, in order to feed themselves and their families, take any job that just barely puts food on the table and just barely affords them rags to live in.

What people like Keith want is not the "rising ship" model of society - what they want, rather, is what I call the "drowning rat" model of society - where there are only so many safe spaces on the raft of society, so to speak, and everyone fights and kicks and screams for a place, and the losers all drowned. Gosh - sounds like the America that conservatives advocate for today....

And well how about that - sounds like the life missions of Murdoch and the Koch Brothers and the Coors family, and the rest of our latest crop of billionaire punk boys so visible and politically active today as well. They simply lack the moral and emotional maturity to distinguish that while the venture of business is properly "every man for himself" - that the venture of human living calls for an economic system to be moderated by somethine else entirely.

@Keith. I think you misunderstood the intent of my last comment. If you want to pay money for someone to put unfiltered lake or tap water in a bottle for you That's fine. My example was to demonstrate that not all private endeavors constructively contribute to the larger pie.

For the purposes of this conversation, I would define overconsumption as taking more tangible resources than you can use resulting in the waste of those resources. i.e. food thrown away because you couldn't eat all you took, houses sitting empty because you can only live in one at a time, cars sitting unused because you can only use one at a time, etc.

You can't have opportunity without certain necessities. If you are struggling for survival, I would argue that your society is probably only "free" in ideology and not in reality. A truly free society would give everyone an even playing ground to start and allow their talents and drive to take them as far as they would like instead of handicappng them for being born to the wrong parents or in the wrong part of the world by denying them food, clothing, shelter, education and health care.